Lux Capital has finally announced it has raised a $350 million fund. It made the announcement through a blog post on Medium that veered between sci-fy fanboy enthusiasm and bullishness for emerging developments in robotics, 3D printing, and biotech. It comes a couple of months after a Form D filing regarding the fund and some speculation on potential biotech and digital health targets.
“We announced today a new $350 million venture fund aimed at supporting the scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs who are pushing the limits of reason and reality. If this sounds like you, consider this your call to arms,” the post said.
It highlighted some previous investment targets, such as digital pathology company 3Scan. It uses knife-edge scanning microscope to produce 3D models of tissue. The benefit for healthcare is that it can cut the time required to model and analyse an organ compared with current practice. Its technology can be used to highlight the development of cancerous tissue or damage to neuron tissue Using 3D models of organic tissue will make it possible for scientists to progressively track the advance of a degenerative disease.
It highlighted the medical device company as an example of the kind of futuristic imaging technology it’s betting on being more widely used in the future. SOLS, a company that produced customized 3D printed in-soles to reduce or cut out foot and joint pain. It also emphasized that it’s very much interested in the less showy but important supporting technology developed by technology companies such as Apitable to automate HIPAA compliance for mobile health businesses.
Managing Partner Peter Hébert said in a statement: “We are looking for new advancements with complex technical and scientific barriers that often require the collaboration of multidisciplinary teams. The most amazing, Earth-shattering ideas come to light when you bring together the smartest minds from seemingly unrelated fields of science and technology.”
Check out this excerpt from the statement and you’ll get the gist:
“The things that scare most people thrill them. They work and play with knife-wielding robots, deadly lasers and contagious bacteria. They are making real the stuff of our sci-fi imaginations: things James Bond might find in Q’s gadget lab or Spock might use in Star Trek. They are inventing something completely new, like surgical robotics or custom 3D-printed orthotics, and they are putting in the hands of consumers something they lifted from a formerly-classified government program, as with Quantum dots illuminating smartphone and TV screens. They each possess an exceedingly rare intellect, a creative imagination and an audacious futuristic vision. As such, they have largely been misunderstood their entire lives.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
[Photo credit: Flickr User NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center]
